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friend, not Rick the...
    "You did what you needed to do, Lauren. We're a team. I know you think I give you a hard time, but that is because I know you can take it."
    I leaned toward her.
    "I was ten seconds from you at all times. When I heard you say the bag was on the back seat, I wanted to rip that car door off its hinges. You know why I didn't? Because I knew you would come through."
    She shook her head. "But, Rick, you are missing the point, the thing..."
    I stopped her. My guts churned.
    "I know what the thing is,"
    Her first full tears fell, streamed down her cheeks and dropped on the table.
    Now I understood the look she'd given me earlier. I leaned back in my chair, knowing we were about to reach a point in our relationship that we could never go back on.
    I took a breath and asked the question, even though I knew the answer.
    "Why are you so concerned that I heard what happened? Des heard it all too."
    Lauren wiped her eyes. A laugh came from her, but it was hollow.
    "You really don't know, Rick?"
    It had been many years since I had seen eyes look at me that way.
    I felt my voice falter "I suppose I ... well, I didn't until now."
    She held my gaze for the longest time.
    "And now you do?"
    My heart was beating hard. My lips were dry.
    "Lauren, I don't think that..."
    I didn't get to finish the sentence. She stood and forced a smile.
    "Don't say another word, Rick, not another word. I know where I stand. Don't worry, I won't mention it again."

Des Cogan's Story:
     
    Rick had called for a meeting of the team and we sat around a small table in his suite. We had spent the last weeks in the lap of luxury. Lazy days by the pool mixed with long training sessions in the Sheraton gym. Old habits die hard and the early days of fine food and drink had been replaced with healthy eating, lots of water and night-time tabs along the Corniche.
    Lauren looked tanned and lithe. She had been to the hairdresser and her shoulder-length hair had been cut into a bob.
    She had also taken to visiting a shooting club in Dubai three or four times a week, firing upwards of five hundred rounds a visit.
    She had never mentioned that night in Belfast since our first day. I knew she would never forget it, but she seemed to have regained her confidence as well as her thirst for knowledge and skill. Some things are best left alone, so we all kept mum.
    The news coverage of O'Donnell's murder had lasted two weeks. Allegations of a cover-up and Secret Service involvement had run riot. The NIRA had threatened reprisals against the British Government and two explosive devices had been planted close to Police Stations, one in Belfast and a second in London. Both had been discovered and made safe without casualties. O'Donnell's funeral had been a grand affair and all the big names had made sure that the airwaves were filled with the political rhetoric befitting the occasion. Despite O'Donnell's wife's public wishes, there had been a paramilitary show of arms at the graveside, reminiscent of the bad old days of the balaclava and the Armalite.
    Her feelings were not to be spared by the press either. The 'red tops' had relished the storyline of a kerb-crawling politician. CCTV images of the Bentley cruising Linen Hall Street had been shown on television. Strangely enough, there was no footage available on the night of the murder; adding fuel to the conspiracy theories.
    It had been a clean job.
    The question was; what now?
    Personally, I was quite happy with my lot. At the wrong side of forty, I was looking forward to returning home and putting my feet up. I hadn't seen the cottage or the Loch for months and had a hankering to get some fishing done.
    Rick had other ideas.
    He opened a webpage on his laptop and turned it in our direction.
    The screen showed a very professional looking website offering personal bodyguards to the rich and infamous.
    RDL Close Protection Service promised the best trained ex-services personnel, anytime anywhere. Everything was